I am sad. The updated version of space-faring roguelike FTL the developers are showing off in their beta video series is a few steps beyond the IGF version I have on my PC. So, yeah, you might like what you’re seeing and want to play it, but take a moment to think about what it’s like to be me? To see a better version of a game I own, but can’t have yet. I will accept your pity. I’m about to throw a massive, over-entitled strop. Hnng. HNNG. No, I can’t stay mad at them. Not after this video shows what they’re adding to the game: new ship designs, stealth elements, and NPCs to fix fires. Also: fire beams to start fires.
Eff Tee Ell is currently in the process of Kickstarting. They’ve made the money they needed, plus several thousand more, but there’s only five days left on the funding round if you want to play the game from its beta phase in May via Steam.

I’m enjoying the fact that every time they produce an update video there’s a new thing to see in it that makes absolutely perfect sense and adds more tactical choices to the game.

Beam weapons – of course they have to be in! The glories of firey destruction.
Different races of crew having different strengths – adds more personalisation, I’ll no doubt feel horrible when I carelessley let my guy who is good at fixing everything die in a boarder assault.

Looking forward to the beta so I can get my grubby mitts on this, the OnLive demo really whetted my appetite. I’d actually been swithering on bumping up my pledge amount, but I know I’ll never look at a PDF art book.

Space trading doesn’t really make sense in the context of being a galaxy-hopping military commander, though. Even when you go rogue in ME2, you still theoretically have the near limitless resources of a terrorist organization backing you, so having to shuffle whatzits around between systems in order to earn cash seems weird.

I’d totally play Mass Effect: Gaiden, however, in which I get to play a lone Quarian who takes up plying the trade lanes in order to bring an awesome gift back from his Pilgrimage, but only if said Quarian is also a loose cannon and plays by nobody’s rules.

You say that, but in ME1 there was a character on your ship who tells you that he buys and sells goods every time the Normandy lands and in ME2 all of your goodies are built with resources you’ve prospected in the most tedious way possible.

You do realize that it is possible to own more than one game, yes? That means a single game does not have to do *everything*. As much as I love both Mass Effect *and* Elite, and as much as I’m looking forward to FTL, merging the three would produce a lumbering behemoth that plays like crap in all departments. I’m personally happy if we can have all three games *separately*.

“Hey you know that game in your head that you wish someone would finally make? Well, it sucks, even though it doesn’t exist. Please continue to be content with contemporary games that are whittled and streamlined to fit into the most narrow experiences possible.” – You, 2012